1. Field of the Invention
The invention is directed to a wheelchair lift which enables to lift a wheelchair from a ground level position to an entry level position in a vehicle and inversely.
2. Description of the Related Art
Vehicular wheelchair lifts are utilized to facilitate lifting of wheelchairs into a vehicle. The wheelchair lift comprises a platform assembly to load a wheelchair. The wheelchair may be moved by the lift among a stowed position in which plates of the platform assembly are in a folded configuration inside the vehicle, an entry level position in which the plates of the platform assembly are unfolded so that the wheelchair can be loaded onto the platform assembly in the vehicle and a ground level position in which the platform assembly is still unfolded and coplanar to the ground outside the vehicle.
The wheelchair lift may be constructed such that inner and outer plates of the platform assembly are automatically moved from the folded configuration to the unfolded configuration when the platform assembly is moved from the stowed position to the entry level position. In the same way the inner and outer plates of the platform assembly are collapsed when the platform assembly is moved from the entry level configuration to the stowed configuration.
It is desirable to design the wheelchair lift such that the folding and unfolding processes of the inner and outer plates of the platform assembly are accomplished by a continuous and slow movement of the inner and outer plates.